


Dawn - Buffy's Inner Child

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: Is Dawn Buffy's Other Half? Sister? Child?
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers
Kudos: 1





	Dawn - Buffy's Inner Child

Who is Dawn?? Besides the annoying, whining, irritating brat the audience would like to throw off the cliff. (And oh yes, besides the key - yes I know she's the key - I just think there's more going on here. So bear with me.) I've been thinking a lot about Dawn lately - like why is she so annoying and why do the writers feel the need to emphasize this? Something James Marsters said in one of his many interviews got me thinking - he said that Joss Whedon and ME don't let anything slip by them, everything they do has a purpose. And Joss wanted us to hate Dawn, to dislike Dawn, so we'd feel her alienation, how she feels separated from everyone, including the audience. "The ultimate outsider." Interesting. The Ultimate Outsider. Isn't that how every teenager feels? But what if it's more than that - what if - Dawn is representative of Buffy's feelings of alienation? What if Dawn is the part of Buffy that isn't the slayer, the emotional part, the child, the innocent, the alienated teen?? The abandoned girl???

To Buffy - Dawn is her sister. She is first introduced at the end of Buffy vs. Dracula as just that, her sister. Buffy goes upstairs - looks at Dawn and asks who are you? And Joyce says - Buffy look after your sister. Later we learn in NO PLACE LIKE HOME that monks took a mystical key, gave it flesh and sent it to Buffy in the form of a sister. As Giles puts it in the book Dawn and Spike discover in Bloodties: "The monks possessed the ability to transform energy, bend reality…(edited for length) They had to be certain the Slayer would protect it with her life. So they sent the key to her ... in human form. In the form of a sister."

Sister. Interesting word. My sister self. My other self. My little shadow. My twin. When a parent loses a child, the parent feels as if a part of themselves has been stripped away, and the ache never fades. The child is part of them. What happens when you lose a sibling? A sister? I can only speak for myself on this - but I remember when my Aunt died, my mother felt as if a part of her had gone, yet was still there in her heart. The sister self. The other self. Hmmm. Perhaps I'm reaching. It's interesting how they introduce Dawn in the Real Me. The scene starts with Buffy meditating. Giles tells her "You are the center. And within you, there is the core of your being ... of what you are. Find it ... breathe into it. Focus inward. Let the world fall away ... fall away ... fall away...." Then Dawn appears, disrupts the crystals. Everything tumbles. And she says, "Can we go now?" This scene reminded me of two other scenes - one in Helpless, where Giles saps Buffy's strength while she is under hypnosis, making her as helpless as a girl and then again in Restless where Giles is hypnotizing a childlike Buffy. I think this was on purpose.

Before Dawn appeared, in Season 1-4, Buffy seemed strong and weak, she seemed to be two girls. The alienated teen and the slayer. Tough on the outside. Marshmallowy in the center. In Season 5 - the metaphors all appear to be about duality or the split, left brain vs. right brain, heart vs. mind, male vs. female, child vs. adult, slayer vs. innocent girl, prom queen popularity gal and normal guy vs. alienated slayer and vampire - the metaphors are endless. And this is the Season that they introduce Dawn? Let's look at the REPLACEMENT - very interesting episode, it occurs right after the REAL ME. It focuses on Xander but it seems to echo the themes of the entire season. And - what I find particularly interesting is the inside joke (apparently according to interviews with NB - his twin brother played the other role). Xander is split into two people, who are completely different parts of himself and act a lot like brothers, they want to kill each other, then they think they are cool. But - the split was supposed to happen to Buffy, Xander pushed her out of the way of the blast and took it instead. Here's what Giles says it was meant to do to Buffy:

> BUFFY: Two Buffys?  
>  GILES: Yes. One with all the qualities inherent in Buffy Summers, and the other one with everything that belongs to the slayer alone ... the, uh, the-the strength, the, uh, speed, the heritage. And when it hit Xander, I think it separated him into his strongest points and his (grimaces) weakest.  
>  RILEY: But which one's the real one?  
>  GILES: They're both real. They're both Xander. Neither one of them is evil. There's nothing in either of them that our Xander doesn't already possess.  
>  RILEY: I still don't get the original plan. I mean, why do it? The slayer half would be like slayer concentrate, pretty unkillable.  
>  GILES: But the two halves can't exist without each other. Kill the weaker Buffy half, and the slayer half dies.

Interesting. What if this has already happened? Not completely. I'm not saying that Buffy isn't whole - she is, that was established. Nor am I saying that if Dawn dies, Buffy does. We know that's not true from the Gift. No - I think its more ironic than that and clever - the monks took a portion of Buffy to create Dawn. DNA? Flesh? Soul? Blood? So that Dawn has effectively become Buffy's child self, the part that is still innocent, helpless, not a slayer. The central self, if you will. They did not create Dawn from Joyce. As Joyce says at the end of LISTENING TO FEAR (edited for length and emphasis): "Dawn... She's not ... mine, is she? She's ... she does belong to us, though. And she's important. To the world. Precious. As precious as you are to me. Then we have to take care of her. Buffy, promise me. If anything happens, if I don't come through this- No matter what she is, she still feels like my daughter. I have to know that you'll take care of her, that you'll keep her safe. That you'll love her like I love you."

Precious. Precious to the world. You can read this dialogue several ways. That's the great thing about BvTs. But if you will bear with me - I think that the line "she still feels like my daughter" is just as important. They both are her daughter. Dawn is part of Buffy, and part of Joyce via Buffy. And if anything happened to Dawn it would destroy Buffy, because in a sense she'd be losing a portion of herself. Spike, oddly enough, senses this in Intervention: "'Cause Buffy ... the other, not so pleasant Buffy ... anything happened to Dawn, it'd destroy her." This statement amazes Buffy. He gets it. (More on Spike and how he's used later.)  
Buffy herself gives voice to this idea in The Gift:

> GILES: (whispers) She's not your sister.  
>  BUFFY: (pause) No. She's not. She's more than that. She's me. The monks made her out of me. I hold her ... and I feel closer to her than ... (looks down, sighs) It's not just the memories they built. It's physical. Dawn ... is a part of me. The only part that I- (stops)

The only part that what? The only part worth saving? The only part she feels that is worthwhile? The human part? In Buffy vs. Dracula , Buffy has been out hunting a lot. She is afraid of what she is becoming. She appears to be becoming the uberslayer. A lot of posters think ME dropped the whole slayer storyline in Season 5, I beg to differ. I think they explored it in a different way through the split. They split off the child - forcing Buffy to be the adult, forcing Buffy to deal with the darker more adult half of herself, while still having to pay attention to the alienated, abandoned, innocent child. Because that's the problem with becoming an adult, there's that dang inner child inside that is still screaming about old wrongs, being ignored, and rehashing all your fears. Look at who the big bad is in Season 5? Glory/Ben = as one poster put it, quite brilliantly by the way, Glory is the popular girl personified, uber-Cordelia, and Ben is the normal, life saving hunk personified - uber- Riley. And they inhabit the same body. These two represent Buffy's dream. Who she once was = Glory. The man she could have had =Ben. And both are amoral monsters and they kidnap and try to destroy Dawn, the child self, the part of Buffy that should still want those things. But Dawn sees through them - she doesn't want Ben/Glory - she wants Spike/Buffy. To Dawn - Ben has become the monster. Buffy is also polarized = she is placed with Dawn - her child self and Spike - dark slayer self (symbolized by Dracula early on). Spike/Buffy? What? You've lost it Shadowkat! I can see Dawn/Buffy. But Spike/Buffy too? Well bear with me - Notice who goes up to the catwalk and fights Doc? Spike and Buffy, both alone and both fail in different ways. Spike fails in stopping Doc. Buffy arrives too late. Buffy asks Spike to protect Dawn for her. She is in a sense asking the dark/demonic shadow self to protect the innocent(light)/human self. She is both - they are her mirrors and when she leaves - they must protect each other, because she doesn't expect the others too.

Okay now let's move onto Dawn's odd relationship with Spike. It surprised me that the writers went this route. And I think it is very important. - not for what it says about Spike so much as what it says about Dawn and by extension Buffy. I believe Spike in Season 5 (and possibly Season 6) - is often (not always) used to represent Buffy's dark side. The shadow self. The slayer. Has anyone else noticed that when Spike and Dawn are together - Buffy is seldom present and when Buffy/Spike are together Dawn isn't present? Also why on earth did Buffy leave Dawn and her mother with Spike in Checkpoint?

Here's the scene:  


>   
>  SPIKE: (surprised) So, what's with the family outing?  
>  BUFFY: (quietly, walking up close to him) I need your help.  
>  SPIKE: Great. I need your cash.  
>  BUFFY: I'm serious. (even more quietly) You have to look after them.  
>  SPIKE: Well, that's a boatload of manly responsibility to come flying out of nowhere. What's the matter, Slayer? You're not feeling a hundred percent?  
>  BUFFY: (frowns) No.  
>  SPIKE: (frowns) They didn't put a chip in your head, did they?  
>  BUFFY: No!  
>  SPIKE: Be funny if they did.  
>  BUFFY: (annoyed) Spike, I need an answer. Now. In or out? (quietly) You're the only one strong enough to protect them.  
>  SPIKE: (looks at her for a moment) All right then. (calls to Joyce and Dawn) Ladies... (walks toward them; Buffy follows) Come on in. There's plenty of blood in the fridge.

Apparently Spike doesn't understand why either. But I think I know - he's her shadow self. She knows somewhere deep down that of everyone she knows Spike would die before anything happened to Joyce or Dawn. It's instinctual. But I'm digressing here - back to the Buffy/Dawn parallel. Spike clearly sees Dawn as part of Buffy - and he goes to great effort to protect her as such. In Forever, Spike decides to help Dawn resurrect Joyce. It's interesting that Spike is there for Dawn while Angel is there for Buffy. Both meet the girls by their mother's graves in a cemetery. One is dreamlike. One nightmarish. Spike refers to Dawn at least once in the episode as "Well, what do you know. Bitty Buffy."  
Prior to this scene in Crush - Dawn visits Spike's tomb, partly because she knows her sister would be upset about it and partly because she's attracted to him. The innocent girl attracted to the shadow self. Here's the scene between Buffy and Dawn after they leave his crypt:

> BUFFY: You have a crush on him.  
>  DAWN: No I don't! It's just, (giggles) he's got cool hair, and he wears cool leather coats and stuff. (stops smiling) And he doesn't treat me like an alien.  
>  BUFFY: He's a killer, Dawn. You cannot have a crush on something that is ... dead, and, and evil, and a vampire.  
>  DAWN: Right, that's why you were never with Angel for three years.  
>  BUFFY: (quietly) Angel's different. He has a soul.  
>  DAWN: Spike has a chip. Same diff.

One wonders if Buffy deep inside isn't thinking the same thing? Except Adult Buffy has been taught otherwise. A chip to adult Buffy does not equal a soul. The innocent child - sees the shadow self as safe, he has a chip, and even if he didn't he wouldn't hurt her. The shadow self - the vampire lover - the masculine - would no more hurt Dawn than Ben can truly hurt Glory.

Enough on shadow selves - could be reaching a bit on that metaphor, not sure. So let's go back to Buffy/Dawn and talk about the scene in Season 5 that really highlights the split between adult (slayer) and innocent (child). It is a controversial scene in the episode of BvTS that continues to be, IMHO, the best episode on death on TV ever. In The Body - Buffy has to deal with the death of her mother. The episode does not have any vampires or demons or creatures of the dark until the very end. When a friend of mine saw it - she said that the episode was great except for the vampire in the final scene - why did they do that! She believed it was b/c they had to be horror. I think there was another reason.

Dawn has just wandered into the morgue to see for herself that her mother is really dead. As Buffy puts it - "Dawn doesn't believe me." Dawn is in the first stage of grief denial. Buffy's child self, the innocent, cannot fathom the mother being gone. As she is about to lift the sheet, a vampire (or death?) leaps up to attack. Buffy comes into the morgue just in time and as she is fighting the vampire, the camera shifts to Dawn, who is looking up at the Gurney at her dead mother. Dawn is not involved in fighting the vampire. Only Buffy is. Who is in the scene? The vampire (Buffy's shadow self/death), Buffy (adult), Dawn (child) and Joyce's body or body of the mother. The shadow self or dark side of the slayer attempts to kill the innocent child - seeing one's mother die is a death of innocence. A death of childhood. A friend once told me - that when his mother died, he felt older suddenly, an adult, no longer a child. There was no one to take care of him. Joss Whedon has said that he uses demons as metaphors - in this case he's using a vampire to symbolize the dark rage in Buffy, the shadow self, (maybe even Buffy's guilt at being unable to save her mother?), death personified. Buffy kills the vampire before it can touch the innocent child who is in the process of touching Joyce's corpse. Who is in the process of discovering the meaning of death for the first time. If the vampire is representative of Buffy's shadow self, her rage at death, perhaps it is trying to destroy the child before it can touch death, before it can break through the denial and find out that death is real? Or maybe - the vampire is death, and Buffy in killing it is protecting the child from it? Either way - the scene is a powerful one.

At any rate the way this scene ends - Buffy is in the background and Dawn is in the foreground, with Joyce's corpse above them both.

"Slowly, Dawn pulls herself up to a kneeling position so she can see Joyce's face. Joyce's eyes are still open. We stay on this shot with Joyce in the foreground, Dawn immediately behind her, and Buffy in the background still sitting on the floor.

> DAWN: (not taking her eyes off Joyce) Is she cold?  
>  BUFFY: (whispering) It's not her ... it's not her ... she's gone.  
>  DAWN: (frowns slightly) Where'd she go?  
>  Dawn lifts her hand and reaches out, very slowly.  
>  Close shot of Joyce's head with Dawn's hand moving slowly toward her cheek."

The scene almost looks like a triple reflection: Joyce/Dawn/Buffy, the dead mother, the innocent child, the adult. Forever also examines this theme with Buffy and Dawn when Dawn does a resurrection spell to bring back Joyce. Interestingly enough in this episode - it is Dawn who rips the photograph in half, effectively letting her mother go. While Buffy races to the door shouting Mommy. The child has finally accepted the mother's death, while the adult Buffy wants to hold on because as Buffy puts it: "Well, who's gonna be if I'm not? Huh, Dawn? Have you even thought about that? Who's gonna make things better? (crying harder)  
Who's gonna take care of us?"

Let's move onto Season 6, before adult Buffy is brought back to life, child Buffy (DAWN) is having the sunny existence. She has the cool older brother/boyfriend in Spike, the cool parents in Tara/Willow, and a friend in Xander. Then - Buffy's friends - Xander and Willow decide to bring Buffy back. They do not tell Dawn or for that matter Buffy's shadow self, Dawn's caretaker, Spike. Always found that interesting. Although it does make sense. If Buffy came back wrong - Spike and Dawn wouldn't let them do anything to her. They also might have argued against it.

Now that Buffy is back, she barely acknowledges Dawn. The child self she pushes away and attempts to ignore. The child self at first accepts this, doesn't push, is in the background. But in Afterlife - Dawn does spout fire - so there is foreshadowing that the child will not stay ignored for long, anyone who has kids knows this to be a fact. Children do not like to be ignored. Instead Buffy goes to visit her shadow self - the dark half, the masculine other. As the months pass by, we see her spending more and more time with this part of herself, the dark part, the killer, the slayer. It's more comfortable for her. Dealing with the child, means looking at certain things about herself, her life, her death - the literal death of childhood - symbolized as one poster put it by the leap she took off the tower, the tower of youth? She has to be the grownup with all the responsibilities that entails. It is easier to escape into the shadows, into the darkness, with the shadow self or if you will death. Remember in BvTs - vampires are metaphors for death. Even Spike refers to himself as "dead" or "you're only here because I'm dead". He lives in a crypt. He can't be out in sunlight. She is in a way visiting her grave - escaping from life, escaping from the child.

In All The Way - the child flirts with death. And death flirts with the child. When Buffy the adult shows up flanked by her shadow self (Spike) the irony is palpable.

> DAWN: Oh, like you've never fallen for a vampire?  
>  BUFFY: That was different.  
>  DAWN: It always is when it's you.

Buffy flirts with death every day. Her innocent/child self/sister - Dawn - is almost mocking her. Yet Dawn kills the boy, just as he's about to kiss/bite her, the child isn't willing to embrace death just yet. The very next episode is OMWF and in that episode, the child is beginning to get tired of being ignored by its adult self. Here's what Dawn sings in OMWF: " Does anybody even notice? Does anybody even care?" Indeed, does anyone? Buffy doesn't. Not really. She expects Giles, Tara, the others to take care of the child just as they did when she was dead.

But the child is getting tired of being ignored. Just as the bills. The adult/live world is getting tired of it. Even the shadow self/Spike is beginning to complain, and acting more like a separate character actually than the a shadow self - so maybe we should kick him out of this metaphor. But before we do, I think both want Buffy to live, to accept responsibility, because without Buffy integrating them - the innocent child/shadow self are relegated to half lives.

One final episode to examine - Older and Far Away. Older and Far Away deals with Dawn's frustration at constantly being left alone. She feels that no one cares for her. Older and Far Away also refers to Buffy - who feels older and far away from her loved ones, the episode is after all dealing with Buffy's 21st birthday, the day that you leave childhood behind. Older and Far Away is a line from the last page of JG Ballard's novel EMPIRE OF THE SUN about a boy who lost his family in pre-world war II Shanghai and is not reunited with them until years after the war. By the time he is, he is so changed by his experiences and they by theirs, that they are all both older and far away. What an apt description of how Buffy feels. Here is this child screaming at her from a distance - pay attention to me! Stay with me! But Buffy can't hear the child - she is distracted. And it's not just Buffy that's ignoring Dawn - its her friends - the impromptu family at the beginning of Bargaining Part I: Spike, Xander, Willow and Tara - all of whom follow Buffy up to her room after they discover she may have had something to do with them being locked in the house. This is what Dawn says in reply to Xander, Tara and Willow's comments. Oh notice that Spike - the shadow self - remains silent, but is there in the background, dressed entirely in black.

> DAWN: God! I didn't do anything! I wish I had. (Buffy frowning) I'm glad you're trapped. (very angrily) How else can I get anybody to spend any time with me?  
>  BUFFY: Dawn. If you want us to spend time with you-  
>  DAWN: I don't. Get out. Get out. Get out!

They all leave her bedroom except Buffy. But they feel the rage. Rage that can barely be contained any longer as is represented by the demon lurking in the walls. The demon oddly enough is brought into the house by Buffy and is released by a spell that they are using to get out of the house. Instead of getting out, they've released the demon (Buffy's rage). And the rage attacks the people Buffy is the most furious at with its sword. So it's not Dawn's rage that was brought into the house, or Dawn's rage that is released, it's the adult, Buffy's. Dawn's rage is what keeps them inside. Dawn's rage is expressed through the wish and the jewelry that she is constantly stealing from Anya. (Brief digression here: Why Anya by the way? Could it be that Dawn is reflecting Buffy's dislike of Anya? Notice how Anya always treats Dawn as a child? Anya is Xander's girlfriend and Dawn had a crush on Xander? It is odd that the person, Dawn dislikes the most, is the one who forces the vengence demon, Dawn invoked, to release them from the house. Just as it is ironic that the person, Buffy, is the most angry at (Spike), is the one who helps Buffy defeat the demon she has brought into the house. Sorry about that. Older and Far Away is an incredibly complicated episode.)

It is at the end of Older and Far Away that Buffy finally acknowledges Dawn's needs. She agrees to stay behind with her child self, letting everyone else exit. Oh notice who leaves last and holds open the door. What Spike does in the last scene is very interesting, particularly if he is the metaphor for Buffy's shadow self. He throws the door open when Buffy asks if he thinks they can get out. He waits until everyone is gone, exchanges a look with adult Buffy and Dawn and then exits. Almost as if the shadow self has given it's blessing. Death has exited the building - leaving the innocent child and adult together. Honoring Buffy's decision to acknowledge her child. And Buffy closes the door on him and with a smile goes back to Dawn. If Dawn is indeed Buffy's inner child, the innocent, the light - then perhaps Dawn may be the key to Buffy's rediscovery of herself? The part she lost when she died? Maybe if Buffy can reintegrate the shadow self and Dawn, she can feel whole and strong again? Or is something else going on here? If Dawn and Buffy are part of each other, more than sisters, more than mother and child, than what happens if Dawn is killed? Does the part the monks took from Buffy go back into Buffy? What is Dawn's role? Or is Dawn becoming a separate entity, a portion of Buffy but also separate from her? And is Dawn and Spike the ones who will end up together? Not sure where they are leading us. But I do think that we've stepped over one hurdle with Buffy's acknowledgement of Dawn. Now let's see what happens when she acknowledges her relationship with Spike - to Dawn.


End file.
